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Canadian wind market shrinks but western boom looms

Canadian installations have plunged in recent years, but Alberta's record-smashing tender last month points to brighter days ahead

Canada’s wind installations fell sharply in 2017 to 340MW, down from 702MW in 2016 and 1.5GW the year before that, leaving the industry anxiously awaiting an expected demand boost in western Canada that could offset the recent market contraction in eastern provinces.

Canada ended the year with 12,239MW of installed capacity, according to the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA), giving it the world’s ninth largest installed base in a country of 36 million.

CanWEA expects the market to rebound to 600MW in 2018, still a considerable fall from recent years.

The Canadian market was dominated in 2017 by US-based yieldco Pattern Energy and its associated development companies, which completed the 179MW Meikle project, British Columbia’s largest wind farm to date, as well as the 100MW Belle River in Ontario. GE supplied turbines to Meikle, while Siemens Gamesa supplied Belle River through its long-running relationship with Pattern in Ontario.

The Canadian market for wind turbines in 2017 was led by GE, followed by Siemens, Senvion, Enercon and Vestas, according to CanWEA.

Pattern, whose largest shareholder is Canadian pension fund manager PSP Investments, plans to bring two more large wind farms on line in Ontario this year and next: the 300 Henvey Inlet – Pattern’s first-ever deal with Vestas – and the 100MW Siemens-supplied North Kent.

Still, the slowdown in the historically core markets of Ontario and Quebec have hit the Canadian market hard. Among the most painful stories for the Canadian wind industry in 2017 was the announced closure of Siemens’ blade plant in Tillsonburg, Ontario – among the country’s most high-profile wind manufacturing sites – amid a lack of medium-term opportunities in the province.

The Canadian wind industry has received several other bits of tough news in recent months. In late 2017, the government in British Columbia opted to proceed with the highly controversial Site C hydroelectric project, dimming the opportunity for new wind in the province in the immediate future.

And last week Massachusetts decided to import huge amounts of hydropower from Hydro-Quebec rather than contracting with several other proposed projects that would have resulted in a sizeable build-out of onshore wind in eastern Canada.

Yet for all its recent setbacks, there is still an air of optimism about the Canadian wind sector, due largely to the underdeveloped Prairies region – with Alberta and Saskatchewan having recently adopting ambitious renewables programmes.

In the first step towards its 5GW target for 2030, Alberta last month concluded its first renewables tender – shocking the Canadian electricity industry with its winning bids averaging in at C$37 ($30) per MWh.

The winners of the 600MW contracted in Alberta's first tender were Enel Green Power, EDP Renewables, and Calgary-based independent power producer Capital Power.

Observers have described Alberta’s tender as a sea change for wind power in Canada, with wind now seen as competitive with any other generation technology on a subsidy-free basis in many places.

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Canadian wind market shrinks but western boom looms

Canadian wind market shrinks but western boom looms

Canadian installations have plunged in recent years, but Alberta's record-smashing tender last month points to brighter days ahead

Canada’s wind installations fell sharply in 2017 to 340MW, down from 702MW in 2016 and 1.5GW the year before that, leaving the industry anxiously awaiting an expected demand boost in western Canada that could offset the recent market contraction in eastern provinces.

Canada ended the year with 12,239MW of installed capacity, according to the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA), giving it the world’s ninth largest installed base in a country of 36 million.

CanWEA expects the market to rebound to 600MW in 2018, still a considerable fall from recent years.

The Canadian market was dominated in 2017 by US-based yieldco Pattern Energy and its associated development companies, which completed the 179MW Meikle project, British Columbia’s largest wind farm to date, as well as the 100MW Belle River in Ontario. GE supplied turbines to Meikle, while Siemens Gamesa supplied Belle River through its long-running relationship with Pattern in Ontario.

The Canadian market for wind turbines in 2017 was led by GE, followed by Siemens, Senvion, Enercon and Vestas, according to CanWEA.

Pattern, whose largest shareholder is Canadian pension fund manager PSP Investments, plans to bring two more large wind farms on line in Ontario this year and next: the 300 Henvey Inlet – Pattern’s first-ever deal with Vestas – and the 100MW Siemens-supplied North Kent.

Still, the slowdown in the historically core markets of Ontario and Quebec have hit the Canadian market hard. Among the most painful stories for the Canadian wind industry in 2017 was the announced closure of Siemens’ blade plant in Tillsonburg, Ontario – among the country’s most high-profile wind manufacturing sites – amid a lack of medium-term opportunities in the province.

The Canadian wind industry has received several other bits of tough news in recent months. In late 2017, the government in British Columbia opted to proceed with the highly controversial Site C hydroelectric project, dimming the opportunity for new wind in the province in the immediate future.

And last week Massachusetts decided to import huge amounts of hydropower from Hydro-Quebec rather than contracting with several other proposed projects that would have resulted in a sizeable build-out of onshore wind in eastern Canada.

Yet for all its recent setbacks, there is still an air of optimism about the Canadian wind sector, due largely to the underdeveloped Prairies region – with Alberta and Saskatchewan having recently adopting ambitious renewables programmes.

In the first step towards its 5GW target for 2030, Alberta last month concluded its first renewables tender – shocking the Canadian electricity industry with its winning bids averaging in at C$37 ($30) per MWh.

The winners of the 600MW contracted in Alberta's first tender were Enel Green Power, EDP Renewables, and Calgary-based independent power producer Capital Power.

Observers have described Alberta’s tender as a sea change for wind power in Canada, with wind now seen as competitive with any other generation technology on a subsidy-free basis in many places.

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